Tuesday 31st March 2020

As one might have expected, March 2020 was pretty much a write-off in terms of birding. The final week or so of the month, everyone was getting used to COVID-19 virus “lockdown” restrictions and we mostly stayed inside as I worked from home. During the middle two weeks of March I was off work anyway with (an unrelated!!) illness, but because of the self-isolating situation I had to stay away from school for a long time until any trace of ‘symptoms’ disappeared. Which all meant that I barely left the house after the first week (which was a quiet week anyway).

So I recorded just 2 Wheatear all month (at Rousse on 14th March) and very little else apart from what was seen from the car during a few drives out for provisions etc. I counted a total of 70 Brent Geese at Bordeaux on 15th, which is a good single-flock count for recent years, and we also drove past the Avocet at L’Eree on 23rd.

So, with all this, I don’t really have any decent pics to post, but here’s a photo of a white-faced Blackbird that visited the garden, and a photo of me ringing a Graceful Warbler back in Eilat in Spring 1994 when I was a mere boy.